How Insurance Companies Are Targeting You Using Your Facebook

It’s an interesting time to be alive and watch all the new technology around us. On one hand, some of the tracking and targeting technologies are a bit scary, when you learn how much they know about us.

On the other, it’s a great time to find great products and services. We’re involved in ongoing compromises between privacy and convenience, and the tug-of-war won’t likely end soon.

One signal example of this is how you’re targeted on Facebook for the various things you’re doing. It’s a problem in many ways, because there’s a good chance your activities on Facebook don’t necessarily relate directly to the types of products you really need.

Consider, for example, insurance. Take a look at how insurance companies target you by making use of your Facebook profile.

1. Gender

Believe it or not, gender still matters a lot to marketers and advertisers, especially in the insurance industry. Everything in insurance is calculated by the risk of policyholders, and certain risks different between the genders.

If you want to be shown relevant advertisements for products and services that you can actually use, you’ll want to make sure your gender is listed correctly on Facebook.

2. Job title

Your job title could be utilized to estimate your earnings, and dictate which types of products are advertised to you.

3. Likes

If you liked a page on Facebook, that’s the type of thing insurance advertisers can track in order to introduce you to products and services that are similar (or in some way related) to the page or group of pages you liked on Facebook. Don’t worry, though; this type of advertising is anonymous (for now) … at least in the sense that advertisers don’t know exactly who the 100 people are to whom they’re advertising.

4. Geography

Perhaps the easiest targeting that insurance companies can use is geographic locations. It’s possibly the simplest fix from the user side of the table, because the only action necessary to fix it is to edit your profile and change what city you claim as your residence.

If you want marketers to suggest products and services that you need in your local area, you’ll definitely want to change that. If not, you’ll need to search for local insurance agents in Miami, for instance, or whichever city you plan to move to.

Drew Hendricks is a professional business and startup blogger that writes for a variety of sites including The Huffington Post, Forbes and Technorati. Drew has worked at a variety of different startups as well as large advertising agencies.